USA 2024 presidential election

They need someone electrifying, and I don't necessarily mean The Rock, although if he did swoop in and get handed the nomination, I couldn't say it was totally out of step with the general insanity of American politics.

Michelle Obama? She definitely seems popular with the base, but she's never shown a real interest in becoming a politician. Parachuting her in now would smack of artificiality and desperation. Bernie Sanders, although even older than Biden, doesn't 'present' as old in the same way. He would certainly G up the more left leaning section of the base but perhaps also turn off the centre or centre right contingent.

Unfortunately, after Obama, Sanders, maybe AOC and a small clutch of potential surprise celebrity candidates, it's just a few sort of generic 'steady' options, one of who would invariably get the nod if Biden did bow out, and the best result would be that fascism was held at bay for four more years, but the MAGA crowd would just try again.

Who have the Democrats got or who could they get who would actually push back on MAGA instead of just desperately trying to hold the gates closed?

Because MAGA is a cult of personality, I have to think that Trump would remain leader even in death. A bit like Kim Il Sung in North Korea.

Yes, the movement would need a custodian, and if I had to guess, I would say it would be another family member because they're the closest to the Trump brand.

Greene et al wouldn't get a look in because they have no personality or charisma . They just have monotone shrillness.

The people behind Trump, eg Miller and Bannon have to recognise that they're never gonna have a better instrument than MAGA to take over the country, so they would very much move to quash in fighting as much as they could in the event of Trump expiring.

There was a moment early in the debate where Biden messed up the end of a sentence and Trump said "I don't know what he just said, and to be honest, he probably doesn't know himself either". I thought that was absolutely devastating because (1) it made Trump look far more astute than he actually is, (2) that is something the Democrat should be attacking Trump with, (3) I was thinking the exact same thing before Trump said it, and as someone who utterly despises Trump, I won't like agreeing with him.

The only silver lining is that the focus groups with independent swing state voters on both CNN and MSNBC were still 50/50 after the debate, so perhaps people are willing to overlook's Biden's terrible performance because the grievances they have with Trump are greater.

I don't really follow American politics but it's election year so I keep in touch. Would changing a candidate so close to the election not be seen as desperation and put people off voting for them?

I think the point being missed is that whilst team Biden continually crow about the REP lying etc, the biggest con job so far is that Biden is fit for office and and a working, functional and present POTUS.

Despite it being obviously not the case for years, surely the American public can now see this presidency for the sham it is?

Biden is nothing more than a shop window manakin. The US is being run by committee.

It's quite astonishing.

Only because people in positions of power within the US government prioritised their fealty to the US constitution and the law rather than a loyalty to Trump himself and weren't about to let him do anything he wanted.

Trump took office after eight years of economic reconstruction under Obama, relaxed some business legislation and then took sole credit for the good economy. You can't say that's not something Trump would do, can you?

Trump's great chance to lead the country through a crisis in the pandemic led to fighting with his own medical advisors and being unable to keep some simple messaging about basic hygiene to stop the spread because he was afraid of alienating his 'don't tread on me' supporters. He failed, but was sure to blame absolutely everyone else.

Aside from the obvious desire to be a 'strongman' leader like Putin, where democracy is hollowed out, he's also the complete definition of a fair weather captain

this exactly!

Democrats only have themselves to blame, the writing was on the wall a long time ago for Biden, but he continued on anyway and so did his backers, now we are where we are.

Democrats are pretty much damned if they do, damned if they don't now, replacing him seems obvious now but is very unlikely to work out at such short notice and persisting with him is pretty much handing it to Trump now.

Its a mess of their making.

I wonder how Trump is feeling about last night because there's every chance this is the case and he fell for the Democrats trap. Even the traditional democrat media were unusually strong in the criticism for Biden, it feels a bit orchestrated like they're all ready to push him overboard.